Jaunita Flessas

Nomination Statement

Link: https://www.w3.org/2025/04/ab-nominations.html

Jaunita Flessas is nominated by Navy Federal Credit Union.

Nomination statement from Jaunita Flessas:

I would like to submit a self nomination for the W3C Advisory Board. At Navy Federal Credit Union, and as attorney and technologist by training, I have spent my career building bridges between emerging technology, human rights, and global digital standards.

The Advisory Board has a critical role to play at this moment. Artificial intelligence is reshaping the web and exposing urgent gaps in interoperability, accessibility, and governance. W3C must lead with clarity, pragmatism, and a bold vision for a future where innovation remains open, equitable, and global. I am committed to advancing the Board’s mission by bringing strategic, legal, and human-centered perspectives to help navigate this inflection point.

I will champion open dialogue, diplomatic conflict resolution, and forward-thinking strategies that anticipate the next generation of web challenges. With a background in enterprise leadership, standards development, and human rights-centered design and development, I am ready to help the Advisory Board drive thoughtful, durable outcomes that serve the web community as a whole.

The future of the web depends not just on technical excellence, but leadership that's both innovative, ethical and people-first. I am ready to do what I can to help W3C meet this moment.

I'm committing to financing my own participation.

Responses to Questions

Question 1: What are the challenges facing W3C as an organization in the next two years, and what skills and interests will you bring to the AB to help with addressing them?

In the next two years, W3C must address the risk of AI and emerging technologies creating new digital divides related to accessibility and usability of AI technologies in low-bandwidth regions. My unique combination of technical expertise in digital accessibility and legal training positions me to craft practical, inclusive, and globally relevant standards. My recent relocation from Washington, D.C. to Melbourne, Australia, along with my proficiency in French, also helps me effectively connect and engage internationally.

Question 2: The AB has been discussing its role in the community and how it may need to be updated to reflect the new governance structure. What do you think the AB's role is, and what do you believe the AB needs to do to fulfill it?

The AB should facilitate inclusive participation by exploring flexible membership strategies inspired by global organizations like ISOC and the IAAP. Leveraging my dual expertise in technology and law, I will support clear governance structures that are technically effective, legally sound, and welcoming to diverse global communities.

Question 3: What do you think of the W3C Strategical Roadmap reported on AC2025? Which parts in it do you think W3C should prioritize in the coming year or 2?

I would prioritize:

Preventing emerging digital divides through inclusive and technically sound AI standards.
Expanding global participation through innovative membership approaches and outreach to underrepresented communities.
Enhancing the standards creation process and policies leveraging my legal expertise.

Question 4: Which AB priority projects (from https://www.w3.org/wiki/AB/2025_Priorities or new ones) do you want to personally spend time working on?

Developing inclusive membership models to diversify global participation.
Strengthening user privacy standards through robust legal and technical frameworks, ensuring individuals have greater control over their data.
Advancing the incubation process to help make it easier for community groups to engage in standards creation and to keep them involved in crafting the future of the web.

Question 5: What do you as an AB candidate believe W3C should be doing about the impact of AI or other emerging technologies on the Web?

W3C must proactively shape technically robust, ethically responsible, and legally informed standards for AI and emerging technologies. With my combined technical and legal background, I will advocate strongly for standards that are practical, inclusive, and that prevent widening the digital divide, particularly for users with disabilities and those in regions with limited connectivity. AI shows great promise and can enrich the lives of users around the world, if used responsibly.

Responses to Live Session Questions

Question 1: What is consensus to you and how important do you think it is to W3C? What are the tensions between moving fast and getting consensus? (from Elika)

I believe in consensus, but I think we need to be clearer about when it's actually needed, expand who should be part of it, and be clear how we reach it without grinding to a halt. For W3C, consensus matters because we're building standards that impact people all over the world. But if we’re not careful, we risk confusing consensus with perfection or letting it become a blocker instead of a tool.

To make it practical, we should define levels of consensus depending on the stakes, support more async and multilingual ways to participate, and invite a broader group of contributors into the conversation. From there, someone has to make the call. That decision should reflect the feedback we've gathered, show awareness of tradeoffs, and keep us moving forward. Consensus isn’t about waiting for everyone to agree. It’s about making sure all voices are heard, especially the ones we often overlook, and being clear about how we move from discussion to action.

Question 2: How do we encourage diverse voices to participate in the community, particularly those who don't have the support or time from their employers? (from Jeffrey Yasskin)

This is something I care deeply about. A lot of the most valuable voices in our field aren’t backed by large companies. They’re working independently, balancing caregiving, navigating disability, or living in regions where access to this kind of work is limited. If we truly want diverse participation, we can’t keep structuring things for people who already have a seat at the table.

We need individual membership tiers that take into account someone’s location and financial circumstances. We should be offering more language support, with tools and events that make it easier to participate for people who don’t speak English fluently. That could include real-time interpretation, translated documents, and regional working groups.

We also need funding models that help cover the cost of participation. Stipends, travel grants, fellowships, and support for contributors who are doing this as part of community or activist work can make a huge difference. ISOC has done a much better job reaching and engaging people from underrepresented regions. W3C should be learning from that and building systems that open the door wider.

Question 3: How should the W3C Process and culture confront or adapt to the pattern of OSS-first, de facto standards, and possible later ratification by SDOs? (from Michael Champion)

We need to start by recognizing why this shift is happening. A lot of open-source communities are creating de facto standards because the formal processes, including ours, are too slow or too rigid to meet their needs. If we want to stay relevant, we need to meet them where they are.

That means doing real outreach to the communities building these tools, inviting them into the conversation, and making it easier for their work to evolve into formal specs within W3C. It also means adapting our process so it feels less like red tape and more like a support system. If something is already gaining traction in the field, we should have clear and faster paths for engaging with it.

We also have a gap in expertise. In areas like machine learning, we simply don’t have enough people at the table. We need to recruit contributors from these emerging fields and help fund their involvement. We can’t expect leadership in these spaces if we don’t invest in the people doing the work.

Question 4: How might you bring your experience with leading an organization with members having different interests to work as an AB? (from Michiko)

At Navy Federal Credit Union, I led accessibility across a large organization with competing priorities. Legal focused on compliance, designers on creativity, developers on timelines, and leadership on results. I had to bring all those voices together without losing momentum.

What worked was being transparent, building trust, and focusing on shared outcomes. I listened early, communicated clearly, and made sure people knew their input mattered even when we didn’t agree. I also tried to find the reasons why there was pushback and give people wins, even when they weren't going to get everything they wanted. That’s the approach I would bring to the AB. You don’t need everyone to agree on every detail, but you do need clarity, purpose, and respect for the people doing the work.

How can we improve Member engagement and get more feedback on W3C operations? (from Igarashi)

One reason many Members don’t participate is because they feel like the work is too complex or over their head. The process can seem technical, opaque, and hard to break into. We need to make it easier for people to understand how things work and where they can contribute, even when they don't have a technical background.

That starts with simplifying how we explain our work (like getting rid of the alphabet soup when we speak). Plain language summaries, orientation materials, and open Q&A sessions can help. I also think we should offer a buddy system to connect newer participants with more experienced ones. That kind of one-on-one support makes a real difference in helping people feel like they belong.

We should also make it easier to give feedback. Short surveys, anonymous forms, and quick check-ins can help us hear from more people. Most importantly, we need to close the loop and show how that feedback shapes decisions. When people feel heard and supported, they show up.